


bridges between the stars

by falindis



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, History of the universe, M/M, No Dialogue, Originally in Finnish, Reminiscing the past, Scifi-AU, Spirit Mairon, The Ainur as Cosmic Entities, Translation, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26465506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falindis/pseuds/falindis
Summary: A sprite of fire wanders between the stars, stripped of his memories and form. Piece by piece, his past comes back to him, along with a love that he once lost.Scifi-AU of the Silmarillion, in which Ainur are cosmic entities. Translated into English, originally in Finnish.
Relationships: Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	bridges between the stars

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written into my writer's group with the prompt "the number 6", explaining the symbolism in the end. This is a fic that works much better in Finnish than in English. There were some aspects that were untranslatable, and thus they lose their original impact. Yet I wanted to share this with those who are interested in seeing another side of my writing! Very different to what I usually write, heavily focused on descriptions and prose instead of action or dialogue. Yet I hope that you will gain something out of this. ♥ Good reading!

A spirit of fire walks between the stars.

The surrounding space is empty and cold. It is nothing but black emptiness, so deep and consuming that it engulfs his flame almost entirely.

The spirit knows not how long it travels. Days, years, centuries. It seeks for something it has long since forgotten. All that remains are burnt embers. All is gone, even his form and name.

Then, slowly, the spirit begins to remember.

*

First the spirit recalls the pain. 

It burns through each scrap of his existence, tears through flesh, shatters the soul and scatters it into millions of minute fragments.

This he remembers. His eye sees as the last spark of its fire joins the flames of Orodruin, melts and disappears completely. He has bound himself into the fires of that sun: a small, golden band, into which coalesces all that is left of him.

The surface of Orodruin boils like the ocean, flutters like a flame in the wind. The light pulses now, igniting and dimming in turn. The surrounding space falls still, holds its breath before the storm.

And then a blinding light engulfs the dark, as the fiery whips of the outer layers of the star shoot into the vastness of space. The scorching rain crosses the emptiness between the stars, showers onto the surface of a nearby moon and incinerates it to ash. The foundations the spirit has built there crumble, becoming one with stardust.

His spirit disintegrates into the void. Fades. Vanishes. What has once been bright and powerful is now dim and dark; so widely spread, that the fragments of his existence no longer find each other.

Before now.

*

Secondly the spirit recalls the war.

This war has begun long before the dawn of time, and it will continue long after its end.

The spirit knows this, for he is of the Maiar, the crafters of the universe. His spirit is immortal, and thus may rise again, although his body would be broken or stolen from him. Unlike these foolish mortals, bound into bodies of blood and bone. The spirit cannot comprehend how someone with a form so frail and vulnerable is so eager to destroy it.

They call themselves the Alliance, these humans and elves and dwarves. They march under a single flag, and in the head of their fleet glimmers Elendil’s star, fiery and cold. Day by day their fleets come closer towards Orodruin’s red and hostile light. Even before their birth has the spirit raised his fortress here, onto a barren stone named Mordor: into a land he built of ash and flame. Amid that he lifted Barad-Dur, the center of his power, into which he poured a spark of Orodruin’s fire.

Although his body has been taken from him, the traces of his work still remain, in this black land, in the ring forged in the depths of its flames. It is meant to bring order amidst chaos, to rule over all the peoples of the galaxy.

His eye still searches. The ring consumes his thoughts, fills his entire being. And thus his attention turns to the brightness of Elendil’s star, which drowns out the comet at its tail.

*

Third the sprite recalls a name.

 _Sauron,_ that is what they called him, _Destroyer of Stars and the Lord of Black Space._ But he was not always like that. Once he had a name, another name: one that meant admirable and unique.

 _Mairon,_ he knows now. He was a smith of the stars, the shaper of stone and flame. There was nothing in the universe that he could not mold. In the beginning of time he wanted to build, to turn beautiful things into more beautiful ones. So perfect and flawless, that the stone halls of the Valar no longer sufficed to fulfill his visions. He wanted _more._

It was a time when he was not yet alone, but served a force greater than himself.

How could he ever have forgotten?

*

Fourth, he remembers his oath.

Mairon recalls the cold dark stone against his knees, as he bows before his new lord, far from the white halls of the Valar. He recalls the glow of blue flames on the wall, the flare of them in the northern sky, burning as hot as the fire in his heart. That same fire sparks in the eyes of his master, as the power of his gaze forces the entire hallway to kneel.

But his lord never forces him, no, unless Mairon wants him to. Everything else in this world Melkor bends to his will like Mairon does to metal, but never his lieutenant. This Mairon does to himself. He forges a thicker set of armor, feeds his uncontrollable flame. He builds bigger and more powerful things: metal snakes and bats and wolves, all of which spread his word throughout the galaxy.

Their method is destruction, but their message is a message of peace, of justice. That there is but one true lord, and that is not their absent god Eru, or his hypocrite of a herald, Manwë. Like Mairon’s his lord’s name is twisted into a mockery: Morgoth, the Dark Enemy, for his gloom drowns out sunlight and plunders star systems into eternal night. Thus, stars ignite and go out at the clash of Manwë’s and Morgoth’s troops, and the boom of their cannons echoes far throughout space.

 _One day this all will be ours, my spark,_ Morgoth swears. Mairon walks beside him as his highest lieutenant, and for thousands of years nothing can keep them apart: not the halls of Mandos, nor lightyears or the greatest distance. They will always return to each other, the shadow and the flame, melding together and entwining.

Mairon recalls their last meeting, the touches and words exchanged in the depths of Angband. He is Morgoth’s, body and soul, each fiber of his being belongs to him.

_I will never leave you, master, I will always be yours._

And Morgoth – no – _Melkor –_ that was his true name – presses a stony grey hand upon Mairon’s cheek, and his eyes are ablaze like a thousand suns.

_We are one._

That day Manwë’s troops arrive at last. They rip Melkor from his throne, steal his crown and melt it into an iron chain. But Mairon is no longer here – he is already far above Angband, flying higher and higher. And there is nothing he can do as the Valar banish Melkor to the space beyond the stars, closing the door behind them.

That is when Mairon makes another oath: one he has kept to this day.

_I shall avenge you, master. This I swear._

*

Fifth he recalls a face.

Although in his final years Morgoth’s visage was terrible to behold, and the mere light of his eyes could slay less powerful beings, Mairon never feared or loathed him. For the Ainur bodies were mere raiments, pretty decorations. Behind the dark armor and burned skin Melkor’s spirit form was a wonder to behold: hair made of stardust, gaze burning with fire, skin glistening with ice.

In a younger world, before they had yet met each other, this was Melkor’s sole form. His breath could arise a storm and touch freeze alive. During those times Melkor often wondered in the spaces between stars seeking for the Flame Imperishable, before he was banished there forever.

 _What did you see there?_ Mairon often asked.

The stars in Melkor’s eyes would grow dimmer then, and he would say nothing. Mairon never asked why. Perhaps he did not even want to know the answer.

Melkor still searches for millennia. Perhaps in the beginning he wanted to create, just like Mairon, not only destroy. But without the Flame Imperishable he may simply mock life, not create it himself. That power is reserved solely to Eru. But still Melkor tries, wandering restlessly in the shadows and on the long corridors of Utumno’s starry halls. Mairon calms him, and in time Melkor’s attention turns from the Flame entirely. Until he becomes a dark mirror of his original desires.

Now that all is left of Mairon but a lonely flame in cold, endless space, he wonders how things would have been, if they had never met. Perhaps Melkor would have found the Flame and created light instead of darkness. Mairon would have eternally remained a smith of Aulë in the white halls of Valinor, crafting moonbeams and comets and the machinery of stars. As a beautiful golden bird in a gilded cage – one that is pleasing to the eye but never sings or tries its wings.

Even if that was a world without pain, Mairon would not trade it to his life passed. Not ever.

So he searches and searches, years and millennia, until his dying spark grows into a sizzling flame.

*

Sixth he recalls himself.

Not simply bits and pieces, but his whole existence. Slowly, as gradually as tectonic plates or dying stars, his fiery fingers light up, one after another. He moves his left leg, then his right, and one at a time each particle of his being awakes from a long-lasting slumber.

Mairon opens his eyes and takes in the surrounding nothingness. He has died and been born anew for a third time, returned to this lifeless world.

A world in which he is alone.

Mairon has been here for long. He knows that he could begin again. Follow the oath to his master and take vengeance to all those, who tore them from each other.

But he could also leave. He knows the chemistry of the stars and the mathematics of the spaces between them. Aulë’s teachings still reside within him, although he abandoned his old master a long time ago. He could open the gate and go, but he could never return.

He could not have done it before. He was too consumed by anger, weakened and diminished by it. Revenge had been a part of his life for so long that he barely remembered what it was like without it. But no more. He is too old and weary.

Now he is ready. It is his time to go.

Mairon lifts his flaming fingers, and the surrounding space bends around him. Rocks and particles whirl in his grasp, taking new orbits at his will.

 _Carbon._ The substance of which all living consists.

Mairon’s flame ignites with a roar, as he pulls into himself the fire of a countless suns.

 _Fire._ Spirit. The spark of life. Without it, carbon is simply lifeless rock.

Mairon bends the planets into position and measures the lines between them, until they are perfectly angled to each other. Space locks into place.

_Open._

Reality shudders, and a black void tears into the space between the stars. The sound is like an exploding star, and the shockwave makes Mairon’s flame flicker.

It is completely silent.

The space between the stars is black and empty, as if it sucks all light into it, not reflecting anything back. Nothing seems to reside behind it.

But that would be no different to this world.

Mairon slips to the space between the stars and closes the door behind him.


End file.
